Sunday, June 1, 2014

Hāfez: Ba Har Su Jalwa-e-Dildaar Deedam

Hāfez of Shīrāz (1325-1389) was the greatest of 14th-century Persian poets, a contemporary of Timur the Turk. During the life of Hāfez, the control of Persia went from the Ilkhanids to the Timurids (i.e. from Mongol to Turk, though Timur's own Barlas tribe was more Mongol than Turk.) Hāfez is a takhallus or nom-de-plume; it means 'guardian', and as a title is awarded to someone who has memorized the Quran. His actual name was Shamsuddin Muhammad, and in his close Sufi circle he was simply called Khwaja.

Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muhammad Hāfez-e Shīrāzī's works are to be found in the homes of most people in Iran - children learn his poems by heart and when they grow up they use them as proverbs:

If that Shirazi Turk would take my heart in hand

I would remit Samarqand and Bukhārā for his/her black mole.

When he heard these lines Timur had Hāfez arrested.

"By the beard of the prophet! With the blows of my lustrous sword," Timur complained, "I have subjugated most of the habitable globe... to embellish Samarqand and Bukhara, the seats of my empire; and you would sell them for the black mole of some dancing-boy (or girl) in Shiraz!"

Hāfez bowed deeply and replied, "Alas, O Sultan, it is this prodigality which is the cause of the misery in which you find me."

(Possibly a reference to Timur sparing the Muslim clergy but not the Sufi scholars. 28 towers of 1500 heads apiece were reported by eyewitnesses from the sack of Isphahan.)

Jo yak jura raseed az ghaib Hāfez
Hama aqal-o-khird bekaar deedam

So suddenly your righteousness is gone Hāfez
Now reason and intellect useless do I see.

From Engels' letter to Marx:

It is, by the way, rather pleasing to read dissolute old Hafiz in the original language, which sounds quite passable and, in his grammar, old Sir William Jones likes to cite as examples dubious Persian jokes.